He became an actor at a very young age but it was nearly 20 years ______ he became famous.

A．until     B．when            C．before            D．that

—I am upset．Somebody told my boss I have a part-time job.

—I am sorry．I have to admit to _____ him about it.

A．tell          B．be told            C．being told            D．telling

This is a film that could make a boy like me, _____ never been to New York, fall in love with the place.

A．who’ve          B．who have           C．who’s        D．who is

It’s said that the boy ______with fear at the sight of the fierce big dog.

A．had frozen           B．was frozen          C．had been frozen           D．was freezing

Keesh lived at the edge of the Polar Sea. He had seen 13 suns in the Eskimo（愛(ài)斯基摩人的）way of  1  time. Among the Eskimos, the sun each winter  2  the land in darkness. And the next  3 , a new sun returns, so it might be warm again. The father of Keesh had  4  a brave man. But he had died  5  for food. Keesh was his only son, who lived  6  with his mother, Ikeega.

One  7  , the village council（委員會(huì)）met in the big iglu（圓頂冰屋）of Klosh-Kwan, the chief. Keesh was there with the others. He listened, then waited for  8  . He said, “It is true that you give us some meat, but it is often old and  9  meat and has many bones.” The hunters were 10 . This was a child speaking 11 them, a child talking like a grown man. Keesh said, “My father Bok was a great hunter. It is said that Bok brought home more meat than any of the two best hunters and that he  12  the meat so that all got an equal share.”

“Na! Na!” The hunters cried. “ 13  the child out! ” Send him to bed! ”He should not talk to graybeards this way!” Keesh  14  until the noise stopped. “You have a wife, Ugh-Gluk,” he said, “and you speak for her. My mother has no one  15  me, so I speak. As I say Bok hunted greatly but he’s now dead. It is only  16  then that my mother, who was his wife and I, his son, should have meat  17  the tribe has meat. I, Keesh, son of Bok, have spoken.” Again there was a great  18   in the iglu, the council  19  Keesh to bed. It even talked of giving him no food. Keesh jumped to his feet. “Hear me,”he cried, “ 20  shall I speak in the council iglu again, I shall go and hunt meat like my father Bok.”

1．A．telling                   B．taking                 C．spending             D．keeping

2．A．flees                    B．disappears           C．leaves                 D．reaches

3．A．winter                  B．year                   C．summer              D．fall

4．A．been                    B．remained             C．made                  D．become

5．A．searching             B．looking               C．hunting               D．struggling

6．A．a(chǎn)lone                    B．well                    C．a(chǎn)long                  D．hard

7．A．morning               B．night                  C．a(chǎn)fternoon            D．noon

8．A．silence                 B．his turn               C．quarrel               D．his share

9．A．rotten                   B．fine                    C．smelly                D．tough

10．A．a(chǎn)ngry                 B．surprised            C．embarrassed       D．puzzled

11．A．a(chǎn)gainst               B．with                   C．of                      D．for

12．A．separated            B．cut                     C．divided               D．cooked

13．A．Drive                 B．Put                     C．Throw               D．Rush

14．A．talked                 B．complained         C．sobbed               D．waited

15．A．but                     B．a(chǎn)nd                    C．or                      D．including

16．A．true                    B．fair                     C．wise                   D．important

17．A．unless                B．until                   C．when                 D．so that

18．A．quietness            B．cry                     C．shout                 D．noise

19．A．ordered              B．pushed               C．begged               D．sent

20．A．Seldom               B．Hardly                C．Scarcely             D．Never

Evidently, our very first president, George Washington, thought being thankful was a big deal. In 1789 he declared the last Thursday in November to be a national Thanksgiving holiday. The intention was to strengthen the unity of the American people by encouraging them to gather together to honor their own families and give thanks for their country. Thanksgiving celebrations were popular even before the Indians and the Pilgrims famous feast. As time marched on, the people of the New England states continued to celebrate the holiday but the people in the lower states went about their own business ignoring it. Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, an active participant in her own community, was shocked. She believed Thanksgiving should be a priority（優(yōu)先）in America for all Americans. She made a decision to be actively involved.

20090401

While caring for her six children, she wrote letters for years to prominent people, magazine articles and editorials challenging others to take up the cause of reinstating（恢復(fù)） the National Holiday of Thanksgiving. Numerous women across the country joined Sarah in the challenge and began writing letters too. Some changes actually occurred. One by one, individual states were once again celebrating Thanksgiving. That wasn’t good enough for Sarah, she wanted all people in every state to once again sit around their tables on the same day and give thanks. She decided to go to the President himself. She wrote to President Zachery Taylor. He said no. Four years later, she wrote to President Franklin Pierce. He said no. Four years later, she wrote to President James Buchanan. He also said no. Finally, four years later, she got the attention of President Abraham Lincoln. He said, “Yes! “In 1863 he declared the fourth Thursday in November as a Thanksgiving National Holiday! That Sarah, she didn’t take no for an answer. She kept at it for thirty-eight years! What a life changer! Wow, thank you, Sarah.

1．Thanksgiving was celebrated because ________.

A．it was very popular with all Americans

B．the people in the lower states overlooked the holiday

C．it was thought of great importance to unite the American people

D．it was celebrated before Christmas Day

2．The underlined word “prominent” probably means ________.

A．friendly           B．outstanding             C．promising               D．ordinary

3．We can learn from the passage that ________.

A．the Indians and the Pilgrims famous feast was also unpopular in the lower states

B．Sarah kept calm when she learned Thanksgiving celebrations was no longer popular

C．through Sarah’s hard work, more and more states returned to the celebration of Thanksgiving

D．a(chǎn) large number of men and women went in for the cause of reinstating Thanksgiving

4．Sarah’s character can be described as ________.

A．stubborn           B．determined            C．brave            D．enthusiastic

Kids will often ignore your requests for them to shut off the TV, start their chores（雜事）, or do their homework as a way to avoid following your directions. Before you know it, you’ve started to sound like a broken record as you repeatedly ask them to do their assignments, clean their room, or take out the trash. Rather than saying, “Do your chores now,” you’ll be more effective if you set a target time for when the chores have to be completed. So instead of arguing about starting chores, just say, “If chores aren’t done by 4 p.m., here are the consequences.” Then it’s up to your child to complete the chore. Put the ball back in their court. Don’t argue or fight with them, just say, “That’s the way it’s going to be.”It shouldn’t be punitive（懲罰性的）as much as it should be persuasive. “If your chores aren’t done by 4 p.m., then no video game time until chores are done. And if finishing those chores runs into homework time, that’s going to be your loss.”O(jiān)n the other hand, when dealing with homework, keep it very simple. Have a time when homework starts, and at that time, all electronics go off and do not go back on until you see that their homework is done. If your child says they have no homework, then they should use that time to study or read. Either way, there should be a time set aside when the electronics are off.

When a kid wears his iPod or headphones when you’re trying to talk to him, make no bones about it: he is not ignoring you, he is disrespecting you. At that point, everything else should stop until he takes the earplugs out of his ears. Don’t try to communicate with him when he’s wearing headphones —even if he tells you he can hear you, wearing them while you’re talking to him is a sign of disrespect. Parents should be very tough about this kind of thing. Remember, mutual respect becomes more important as children get older.

Listen, I know it can be very frustrating for parents to deal with kids who are ignoring them or other family members. Certainly, it can be very annoying. But here’s the bottom line: the less you take these behaviors personally, the more effectively you’ll be able to deal with the different phases your children will go through as they mature.

1．Based on the passage, it seldom happens that ________.

A．kids turn a deaf ear to their parents’ requests

B．parents’ directions sound like a broken record

C．children are ready to follow their parents’ directions

D．parents are unaware of what they are repeating to their kids

2．You’ll be able to deal with your child more effectively if you ________.

A．let your child know it’s his or her turn to do something

B．give your request by saying “Shut off the TV now”

C．a(chǎn)rgue and fight with your child

D．a(chǎn)llow your child to play a ball in his or her court

3．Which of the following statements is a persuasive one?

A．If you fail to finish today’s homework, you’ll face the music in your teacher’s office.

B．You mustn’t let your chores take up your homework time.

C．If your chores are done by 5 p.m., you’d better do your homework at once.

D．If you have no homework, you should study or read.

4．It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．you should take off his headphones when you’re trying to have a talk with your child

B．it will make no difference that your kid is wearing his earplugs while talking to you

C．you mustn’t give in to your kid when he shows no sign of respect

D．kids’ purposely talking to you with iPod gives them a sense of power and control

5．The main idea of the passage is ________.

A．that respecting each other is more important than anything else

B．how your kids behave to ignore and disrespect you

C．that children should make choices and decisions on their own

D．how you can deal with your kid’s behavior without losing your cool

A recent survey of teachers found that an unhealthy passion with celebrity（名人）culture is having a negative impact on British students’ studies and it discovered that celebrity couple, the Beckhams, are the favorites among most students. Many students are ignoring building their own careers to seek a chance at fame instead, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers （ATL） survey found.

Almost two-thirds of teachers said sports stars were the type of celebrity many pupils wanted to follow while more than half of students wanted to be pop stars.

The survey said the celebrities that students aspired to mostly were David and Victoria Beckham who live in Los Angeles now. Soccer player Beckham is on the top of the survey while in second place, with almost a third of the survey’s votes, was his 33-year-old pop star wife.

Almost half of the 300 teachers surveyed said pupils tried to look like or behave like the celebrities they most admired, with some girls even dressing “unsuitably”.

 “We are not surprised about the influence of celebrity culture in schools —it reflects the current media passion with celebrities and the effect of celebrity culture on society as a whole,” ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said in a statement.

“Celebrities can have a positive effect on pupils. They can raise pupils’ aspirations and desires for the future. However, celebrity culture can spread the idea that celebrity status is the greatest achievement and reinforce the belief that other career choices are not as valuable,” said one primary school teacher. “Too many of the pupils believe that school success is unnecessary, because they will be able to get fame and fortune quite easily through a reality TV show.”

1．According to the survey，Victoria Beckham ______.

A．is a pop star most students admire

B．goes in the second place of the celebrities admired

C．won two-thirds of the votes

D．lives in New York now

2．Why does the author mention that pupils tried to look like or behave like the celebrities they most admired, with some girls even dressing “unsuitably”?

A．The pupils think it interesting to pretend to be the celebrities.

B．The behavior or the dress of celebrities can be followed as examples.

C．The author wants to show the negative influence these celebrities had on the students.

D．The author just wants to show being pop stars is very valuable to the students.

3．What is NOT TRUE according to the story?

A．Celebrities can’t have positive impact on the students.

B．Beckham and Victoria are husband and wife.

C．The so-called celebrity culture does harm to the pupils’ ideas about achievement.

D．Many students believe that school success is unnecessary.

4．The best title of the story is ______.

A．Sports Star David Beckham  

B．Survey of Students about Celebrities

C．Harmful Effect of Celebrities on Students

D．Better to Be Pop Stars than Sports Stars

Where is that noise coming from? Not sure? Try living with your eyes closed for a few years.

Blind people are better at locating sounds than people who can see, a new study says, without the benefits of vision the ears seem to work much better.

Previous studies have shown that blind people are better than others at reaching out and touching the sources of sounds that are close by. Researchers from the University of Montreal wanted to see if blind people were also better at locating sounds that are far away.

Twenty-three blind people participated in the study. All had been sightless for at least 20 years. Fourteen of them had lost their vision before age 11. The rest went blind after age 16. The experiment also included 10 people who could see but were wearing blind-folds.

In one task, volunteers had to pick the direction of a sound coming from about 3 metres away. When the sound was in front of them or slightly off center in front, both groups performed equally well.

When sounds came from the side or the back, however, the blind group performed much better than the blindfolded group. The participants who had been blind since childhood did slightly better than those who lost their sight later.

Recognizing the locations of distant sounds can be a matter of life-or-death for blind people, say the researchers. Crossing the street, for instance, is much harder when you can’t see the cars coming.

Still, the researchers were surprised by how well the blind participants did, especially those who went blind after age 16. In another experiment, the scientists also found that parts of the brain that normally deal with visual information became active in locating sound in the people who were blind by age 11. These brain parts didn’t show sound-location activity in the other group of blind people or in the sighted people. The scientists now want to learn more about the working of brains of “l(fā)ate-onset”blind people.

1．The recent study shows blind people are better at telling ______.

A．the sources of loud sounds    B．the locations of distant sounds

C．the direction of sharp sounds        D．the distance of a sound in front of them

2．Which would be a proper title for the passage?

A．A Research on Blind People                  B．Where Is That Noise Coming from?

C．Hearing Better in the Dark                    D．What if Living without Your Eyes?

3．Which of the following matches the passage?

A．Whether to be able to locate the sounds can be of vital importance for the blind.

B．All the volunteers in the experiment are sightless.

C．All the participants did equally well when picking sounds from whatever direction.

D．The later people become blind, the better they can perform in telling the direction of sounds.

4．What do we know about that parts of brain dealing with visual information are active in locating sounds?

A．This happens in almost all the testers.

B．This only occurs in the people who were blind after age 16.

C．It remains nothing new to the scientists any more.

D．It remains a mystery why it is so.

To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking: The box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived, the cellophane（玻璃紙）wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the paper removed, the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this overuse of wrapping is not limited to luxuries（華貴）. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping.

The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping results in much of the refuse put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up rare energy and resources and messing up the environment.

Recycling is already happening with milk bottles which are returned to the dairies（牛奶場(chǎng)）, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More dairies are experimenting with plastic bottles.

The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shop, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufacturers（廠商）who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs.

It is obvious that more research is needed into the recovery and reuse of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and make things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it wisely. What is needed now is a more advanced approach to using rare resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.

1．Why is packaging important to manufacturers? （回答詞數(shù)不超過(guò)8 個(gè)）

__________________________________________________________________________

2．What does the alternative tend to be to replace the use of dairies’ glass and paper containers? （回答詞數(shù)不超過(guò)6 個(gè)）

__________________________________________________________________________

3．What’s the suggestion of some environmentalists? （回答詞數(shù)不超過(guò)7個(gè)）

__________________________________________________________________________